PiHole & Streaming services

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
Joined
24 Oct 2012
Posts
27,109
Location
Yer nan's knickers
I'm in a stick-it-to-the-man kind mood, and right at the top of my petty list is streaming services which charge us to watch ads. As such I'd like to finally put this Raspberry Pi to use that's been in my drawer since the dawn of time, however I'm reading a lot of contradictive stuff online regarding whether it blocks ads or not, some are saying that the ads are served on the same domain as whatever you're watching rendering it pointless.

Anyone tried it?

Cheers :)
 
Diddums said:
I'm in a stick-it-to-the-man kind mood, and right at the top of my petty list is streaming services which charge us to watch ads. As such I'd like to finally put this Raspberry Pi to use that's been in my drawer since the dawn of time, however I'm reading a lot of contradictive stuff online regarding whether it blocks ads or not, some are saying that the ads are served on the same domain as whatever you're watching rendering it pointless.

Anyone tried it?

Cheers :)
Click to expand...
I couldn't get it working for Amazon.
Got it working for three likes of 4 on demand but it breaks the service as soon as there should be an ad it just gives a black screen.
 
Out of interest, which streaming services?

I left Amazon Prime and Disney+ before they included ads in their standard tier. Are you trying to block ads on these and others?
 
I have a pihole setup. Disney+ and netflix both still show ads. Prime, not sure as I never seem to get them on any device anyway.
Youtube shows ads in the official app, but not if used in a browser.
 
Last edited:
If you want to block ads on youtube then Firefox with the "Adblocker for Youtube" works fine.
 
Pi-Holes real strength is for browsing the internet. If im on the internet at work, im reminded just how hellish it can be. At home its much better, sure some things can get through, but as a whole pages load quicker, less stuff moving the page once ads load, etc.

Netflix, Amazon (dont know about the others) are hit and miss... mostly miss as my Amazon plays all adverts, but lots of the UK on demand streaming seems to be blocked quite well. Watched the Peep Show GBBO on 4 the other day, every ad break it seemed to try load ads 4/5 times then just papped the show back on :)
 
Hades said:
If you want to block ads on youtube then Firefox with the "Adblocker for Youtube" works fine.
Click to expand...
I've been using the "Adblock for YouTube" extension in Chrome for a few months now without any issues.

I gave up watching YT on a Windows PC for years because of the ads and switched to SmartTube on Android\Google TV and ReVanced on an Android tablet.
 
I would assume the Pi Hole wouldn't be much use to block ads on streaming services as the ads will likely come from the same IP/resolved DNS location as the content you want to watch.
 
Mujja said:
Out of interest, which streaming services?

I left Amazon Prime and Disney+ before they included ads in their standard tier. Are you trying to block ads on these and others?
Click to expand...

Exactly that. I've already got adblockers on PC, and I use Revanced on mobile, I just need to figure out a way to block ads on telly and I should be free from their incessant nagging.
 
Timely thread. I just installed Adguard Home via docker on my synology box and reconfigured router DHCP DNS. Not sure how it will affect Amazon Prime etc on TV. I'll report back later.
 
Rob_B said:
I have a pihole setup. Disney+ and netflix both still show ads. Prime, not sure as I never seem to get them on any device anyway.
Youtube shows ads in the official app, but not if used in a browser.
Click to expand...

It blocks ads for me on Disney+, I get an odd skip where the ad is blocked but I can rewind it back abit.
 
darkgen said:
Timely thread. I just installed Adguard Home via docker on my synology box and reconfigured router DHCP DNS. Not sure how it will affect Amazon Prime etc on TV. I'll report back later.
Click to expand...
Ads still played when I watched Fallout last night. I've checked the logs this morning and it certainly does blocks some requests and allows others, so perhaps further setup is required to disallow specific requests.

Also interesting is the amount of other nonsense my TV is doing, including shedloads of calls to netflix and youtube, which I do not even use on the TV.
 
I've recently dusted off an old rp3 and fired up pi hole. Overall has been working well. Turns out any platform that hosts it's own ads you cannot block. Rip YouTube.

Are you running anything as a backup?
 
As above, apparently DNS blocking don't work for certain streaming platforms, presumably where they bundle the ads on to the streaming content from the same source. Although, there are untold additional blocklists you can plug in, as I've discovered for Adguard.

I'm now curious, if the types of content streamed, will dictate whether adblocking occurs; e.g. Amazon shows versus partner shows / content. More research required.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom